Two Dissertations · §328 · John Davenant

Cap. III Sol. Rat. 12: old Pelagian cantilena — Prosper, Faustus, Augustine's defense loci

Sol. An old Pelagian refrain: those who hold absolute, efficacious predestination of certain people before foresight of merits induce fate and destroy free choice. Prosper records Pelagians defaming Augustine as utterly removing free choice and preaching fatal necessity under the name of grace (De lib. arb. P. 223). The same charge is in his Responses to the Gallic chapters,. 6. Faustus of Riez, Semipelagian champion, obliquely strikes Augustine as destroyer of free choice for saying everything on either side is fixed by predestination (De lib. Arb. 1.11), and claims a fatal decree is hidden under the word grace. Augustine himself must often wash off that foul calumny (Contra 2 Epist. Pelag. 2.7; De bono persever. 2.12; and elsewhere). I premise this so you see from whose cisterns almost all the adversaries' arguments are drawn.

Latin

Sol. Antiqua fuit Pelagianorum cantilena, eos fatum inducere et liberum arbitrium perimere, qui statuunt absolutam et efficacem certorum hominum praedestinationem ante praescientiam meritorum. Id videre licet apud Prosperum, qui scribit Pelagianos infamasse Augustinum, dicentes Eum liberum arbitrium penitus submovere, et sub gratiae nomine necessitatem praedicare fatalem, De lib. arbit. pag. 223. Eadem objectio occurrit etiam in Responsionibus ejusdem ad capitula Gallorum Obj. 6. Porro Faustus Regiensis Semipelagianorum coryphaeus oblique perstringit Augustinum, et appellat liberi arbitrii interemtorem, qui omnia alterutram partem ex praedestinatione statuta et definita esse pronunciat, De lib. arbit. lib. 1. sect. 11. Atque dicit sub gratiae vocabulum absconditum esse ab illo fatale decretum, ibidem. Postremo, ipse Augustinus multis in locis cogitur hanc iniquissimam calumniam eluere: Contra 2 Epist. Pelag. lib. 2. cap. 7. et De bono persever. lib. 2. cap. 12. et alibi passim. Haec praemittere volui responsioni nostrae, ut ex quorum lacunis omnia fere adversariorum argumenta hauriantur intelligatis.

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John Davenant argues from Scripture that Christ's death is a remedy offered to every person, so that anyone who hears the Gospel may be called to believe, and then opens a second dissertation on predestination.

John Davenant (1572–1641) was Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, bishop of Salisbury from 1621, and England's leading delegate to the Synod of Dort. A Reformed theologian of the moderate school, he defended universal atonement language within a Calvinist frame.

The Two Dissertations (1650) press two theses: that Christ died sufficiently for all, and that God sincerely calls all who hear the gospel — against the novel claim that Christ died only for the elect in every sense. They are Davenant's mature statement of the hypothetical-universalist position that divided English Calvinists.

This volume covers the opening of the first dissertation through the close of chapter 3, with the theses on the extent of Christ's death.

Date1572–1641 AD (Bishop of Salisbury; 1650 Cambridge imprint)

The 1683 reprint was not used as base text. No modern English was copied.

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